My own training is as a biologist, with a minor in Journalism. If anyone would like to check the archive ways back when the first burm stories started to appear. you'll find that I was saying then the same thing I'll say today-we will lose this war and lose big.

The public does not like nor understand snakes, especially 20-foot potential pet and child eaters. The media, when it comes to this subject, is no different from the public-in fact perhaps worse in that it is made up of largely urban "liberal arts" types who have even less understanding of science than your average educated person.

Finally (and the last nail in our coffin) sensational stories sell to the public and deliver a larger audience to advertisers. What could possibly be more sensational than giant snakes slowly crawling toward Washington D.C.?

Against these basic facts of human nature, we have no chance. Our only chance in the beginning was to try to keep this as quiet as possible-once it bacame a "big story", we had already lost. I guess when this is over we'll at least have the small consolation that we were right.

One basic truth we should be stressing that we generally are not, IMO, is that the Everglades were, unnoticed by the media, RUINED many years ago, by a combination of Mercury contamination and a plethora of invasive plants, fish, birds and insects. Where were they then when a few of us were trying to get their attention??
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

Breeder of:
Green Tree Pythons
Jungle Carpet Pythons
Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons
Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors
Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas
Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes
Spider Western Hognose Snakes
Albino Western Hognose Snakes
Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes
Southern Hognose Snakes
Eastern Hognose Snakes
Tricolor Hognose Snakes
Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes
Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes
Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes
Patternless Bullsnakes
S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes
Locality Desert Kingsnakes
Albino Desert Kingsnakes
Hypo Desert Kingsnakes
Mexican Black Kingsnakes
Desert Phase, Striped Desert, Newport, and Coastal California Kingsnakes
Locality Mexican Milksnakes
Spotted Mexican Milksnakes
Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes
Locality Alterna
Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes
Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes
Cape Housesnakes
Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos
Locality Spotted Turtles

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